1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to vises and accessories thereto and, specifically, to jaw plates and work piece holders used in combination with the plates.
2. Prior Art
It is known in the art to have general purpose vises with vise jaws appurtenant thereto with opposing flat surfaces for generally securing flat objects therebetween. Such vises are routinely used with mills, grinders, lathes, and machining centers.
Machining often requires accuracy to within 0.001xe2x80x3 or less, requiring the vise to secure an object reliably to an accuracy of less than that tolerance. It is also common to require several like parts to be similarly machined. Typically, this is performed by machining a number of parts independently in succession. This is expensive, susceptible to introduction of machining errors and differences, and occupies a cutting machine and an operator for an extensive period of time
It is an object of this invention to provide a work piece holder that secures a number of work pieces to a vise as a unit and presents that unit of work pieces to a cutting machine for treatment together, thus greatly reducing time to machine the work pieces and yielding a set of work pieces identically cut. It is a further object that the work pieces be spaced apart from other work pieces so that each may be separately addressed by a cutting tool, as may be found in a milling machine. It is further object that the work pieces be selectively mountable together in horizontal or vertical orientation thus presenting either work piece ends or sides to a cutting tool.
These objects are achieved in a pair of opposing jaw plates, the improvement in each comprising a precise uniform orthogonal pattern of holes in their front (opposing) sides. The holes are dual-purpose in receiving an unthreaded dowel or a threaded rod. The hole terminates in a threaded portion immediately preceded by an unthreaded portion and having a diameter less than that of the unthreaded portion diameter allowing bolt threads to pass through the unthreaded portion and engage the threads of the hole threaded portion. Thus, a rod or a bolt, such as a shoulder bolt, can be threaded into the hole threaded portion therein providing a positive attachment of the work piece holder to the plate. Typically, the unthreaded portion is sized to closely receive standard xc2xc-inch dowel pins to a hole depth of ⅝-inch.
A rod is secured on a vise plate hole over which slides a plurality of blocks. Each block has a recess for receiving a nominally cylindrical work piece larger than the recess so the work piece within the recess is clamped against a next adjacent holder when the two holders are urged together. A second rod spaced apart a same distance, d, is typically employed extending through second bores in the blocks with the recess between the bores. Thus, a number of work pieces can be secured in line with each work piece in a recess and between one of adjacent pairs of holders. The work piece holders thus grouped over a supporting rod in a plate hole form a first chain of holders.
A second chain of holders may be mounted spaced apart from the first chain with recesses of blocks in each chain aligned to hold a cylindrical work piece between them, the first and second chains forming a set. Further sets may be employed on the vice plates to hold a larger number of work pieces to make a cutting process efficient and resulting in uniformly cut work pieces.
So that work pieces may be positioned on the plate at any advantageous position, plate holes are spaced apart from centers of vertical and horizontal neighboring plate holes said same distance, d. Thus, two rods of a set of work piece holders may be positioned at preferred positions on the plate with recesses aligned vertically. Because the vise plate holes form an orthogonal array of holes in equally-spaced horizontal rows and vertical columns, the set can also be mounted on the plates horizontally with the aligned recesses oriented horizontally. Thus, cylindrical work pieces secured horizontally therein present sides upward to a cutting tool. Likewise because the vise plate holes form such a pattern of precisely-located holes, the sets of chained work piece holders can be mounted on the vise plates either oriented vertically or horizontally and spaced apart from other sets on the plates a preferred distance.